Here's the completed veil with a sneak peek of the cotehardie. I'm still planning a deep pink overdress with short sleeves and buttons up the front. I do feel sad to cover this dress though! But onto the veil :)
The first frilled veil I came across while actively searching for something to put on my head was at Medieval Silkwork. I thought I had come up with a veil that was a mix of those that inspired me, but looking at my sources again after wearing it, it's obvious that I was most inspired by hers. It's a lovely veil, and I wanted to make sure to give proper credit to my inspiration!
Here's the veil, laid out flat. It's sewn with a running stitch to a large half oval. Both right and wrong sides are shown.
And here's a closer view of the same thing. You can see that I only sewed the frill to the veil at the edge of the binding.
Now, putting the veil on. You need to start with an appropriate hairstyle. Looped braids were very popular, and I decided to imitate those by wrapping my fake braids into sideways buns. I just wrapped the fake braids around my own very tiny braided buns. I had planned on making a St. Birgitta cap since I didn't think a band would stay put on my apparently fussy head (nothing likes to stay on it), but when trying it on, I found a solution--pin the band to the buns. The band is just a bias strip of linen that I really need to hem before I wear. It's pinned in back, and to the buns. I used green pins so they would stand out. In the picture with the cotehardie, I put my hair in three buns--the two shown and one at the base of my neck. In the pictures here, two. I think that I prefer three to better anchor the band in back.
Now, pin the veil to the band. Start with the center, and pin perpendicular to the band. You can see the back of the pin sticking out in back a bit. I'd bury it better if I were actually wearing it. Then, use two more pins to pin the veil at your temples. I find it works best about where I pinned the band to my braids. My pins are from The Norse Gypsy Forge on Etsy.
And that's it! It's really quite a comfortable and secure way to wear a veil.
References:
Research and Thoughts about Frilled Veils at By My Measure (and she has a lovely frilled veil on her Fitting Yourself page
Frilled Veil in Action at Medieval Silkwork
Starched Frilled Veil, at Katalfalk coincidentally the same site I learned honeycomb smocking from.
The Fretwork Veil at Family de Huntington.
LInks to many veils at Larsdatter.com
